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All That Heaven Allows - Criterion Collection

All That Heaven Allows - Criterion Collection

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Heavenly Insight into human nature
Review: "All That Heaven Allows" is a film you ought to see twice. The first time is to get a surface grasp of what is happening. The second time is to get the meat out of this movie. What "All That Heaven Allows" offers is some great insight into human nature. What humans have a tendency to do, just as it is shown in this movie, is to try and run other people's lives by judging them and warning them of all the dire consequences that will happen if a person goes through with some intended course of action. Once that person is talked out of doing that something, you would think there would be a sort of welcome back party, but what happens instead is that people will do the very things they warned against, as if the person did not come around. In the process that person has lost the opportunity to change one's life. The pearl of great price is tossed away so that other people can be happy. But once someone gives up that pearl, other people will jerk the rug out from underneath them anyway. The moral of the film is, "to thine ownself be true." If we go about spending all of our energies to please other people and do what they want, they won't respect us. If we try and take some independent road, they will call us a radical. If you live by other people's opinions of you, you will go crazy unable to please anyone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ............legends .............
Review: ..... women still wore tight corsets and just had to conform .... talk about Stepford .......

this one's a brilliant peek into Ike and Mamies USA - post WWII

SIRK, WYMAN .... HUDSON ...... brilliant trio.....

As Wyman's on screen son spats "You're just seeing a good looking bunch of muscles" - referring to Rock ... Yeah so what?

It's brilliantly lensed, costumed and directed by DIETLEF SIERCK [retitled Doug Sirk when he ventured - without English into the American movie-mill]. He certainly saved Universal's bacon back then ...........

The rest? The movie has inspired so many imitators and GOOD imitators - down to the Julianne Moore version recently ...

Rock, or rather Roy? Have to dwell on this one .... he rescued the studio so many times, especially later with the Day/Hudson comedies ... and more or less had the 'Lylah Claire' exit.

[There was even the rumor that all of his existing costumes were to be burnt - for fear of contamination - after his passing ..... sad little town!]

Elizabeth Taylor is currently too tired to hold his torch ...isn't it time for a Hudson retrospect?

Proceed!

[Great support by Agnes Moorehead as the clockwork 'friend' and the brat of a daughter Gloria Talbot .... whatever happened to HER?]

.... as for the rather obsolete Country Clubs .....

African American actors appear - briefly - but Sirk's indelible comment is quite there!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ............legends .............
Review:
Format: Black & White, Color
Studio: Universal Studios
Video Release Date: February 17, 1998

Cast:

Jane Wyman ... Cary Scott
Rock Hudson ... Ron Kirby
Agnes Moorehead ... Sara Warren
Conrad Nagel ... Harvey
Virginia Grey ... Alida Anderson
Gloria Talbott ... Kay Scott
William Reynolds ... Ned Scott
Charles Drake ... Mick Anderson
Hayden Rorke ... Dr. Hennessy
Jacqueline deWit ... Mona Plash
Leigh Snowden ... Jo-Ann
Donald Curtis ... Howard Hoffer
Alex Gerry ... George Warren
Nestor Paiva ... Manuel
Forrest Lewis ... Mr. Weeks
Tol Avery ... Tom Allenby
Merry Anders ... Mary Ann
Alan DeWitt ... Stationmaster
Jim Hayward ... John
David Janssen ... Freddie Norton
Anthony Jochim ... Mr. Adams
Paul Keast ... Mark Plash
Joseph Mell ... Mr. Gow
Vernon Rich ... Bill
Paul Smith ... Tom
Donna Jo Gribble ... Miss Taylor
Helene Heigh ... Ann
Eleanor Audley ... Mrs. Humphrey
Gia Scala ... Manuel's Daughter
Edna Smith ... Miss Edna Pidway
Rosa Turich ... Rozanna
Lillian Culver ... Mrs. Taylor
Helen Andrews ... Myrtle

Widow Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is in love with Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) who is 15 years her junior, but her two children and some of her acquaintances 0bject to their marriage. In order to mollify others, she puts off the marriage, until she finds that her friends and children are selfish and really don't care about her.

This is a good film, well acted and with beautiful New England scenery.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre

author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Thoughtful story offers a brilliant cinematic experience...
Review: All That Heaven Allows is a remarkable story about an older woman, Cary Scott (Jane Wyman), falling in love with a younger man, Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), which was something unthinkable in the 1950's. Their love for each other seems to be doomed from the beginning with children pressuring Cary and a town that is full of malicious gossip. Ron disregards the public outcry against their love, but it is not as easy for Cary who has lived most of her life with the same societal policies that are now harming their love for each other. All That Heaven Allows offers a thoughtful story of social restrictions that might hamper the development of human beings and it does so with a brilliant cinematic experience.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: All That Heaven Allows
Review: All That Heaven Allows starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson has always been one of my favorite movies. The Criterion Collection DVD is outstanding! The transfer to DVD is just plain gorgeous. I've watched this movie on TV and on VHS many, many times. Watching it on DVD is like watching it for the first time. Get this DVD now! Gwendolyn Aughtry, Landover, MD

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Far from Heaven
Review: From the opening shots of a small (presumably a New England setting, although I am not sure where this was actually filmed) town during fall, to the bright blue car that pulls up to Jane Wyamn's home, to Agnes Morehead's head turning shade of lipstick, you know that "All That Heaven Allows" is firmly rooted in the 1950s. It's nice to see Douglas Sirk getting the critical appreciation he deserves (most recently with the full length Sirk homage "Far from Heaven".) This film is gorgeously photographed (pay attention to the scene where Wyman and daughter confer in the light of the stained glass window) and well told. While this film can hardly be called a "hard hitting" look at 1950s society at first glance, the more you watch it, the more the subversiveness comes through. One of the most telling moments is the conversation between Jane Wyman and the wife of Rock Hudson's friend who talks about realizing how caught up she and her husband were in material trappings and how they opted out of that lifestyle. This conversation (and indeed this film) is just as resonant and important today where materialism is rampant and the longings underneath the surface are never explored.

Rock Hudson is fine as Jane Wyman's landscaper/love interest. He's an incredibly good-looking man and is the recipient of one the film's funniest lines when Wyman asks him "Would you prefer I was a man?" Of course, this line is only funny in hindsight now that we know what we do about Hudson's life. Agnes Morehead (pre-Endora) is also very good as Wyman's best friend.

As somebody who was only familiar with Jane Wyman from her work as the devious Angela Channing on "Falcon Crest" (a role she truly must have relished), it is nice to see her playing much more sympathetic characters in her heyday. The eeriest thing is that despite a few wrinkles as she got older, Wyman always looked the same. Wyman is very good in this film as she vascillates between the financial stability of the upper crust and the emotional satisfaction of life with Hudson. I highly recommend this film, and cant say enough good things about it. If you're not a fan of soap opera melodrama, you may want to stay away, but it's your loss as this is a gorgeous film that deserves the respect years of scrutiny have given it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: all that heaven allows and then some!!!
Review: great little story--- wealthy widow falls for hunky gardner and my how the townnies talk!!! hudson never looked better and aggie moorehead as the neighbor is really great and she gets in some good 'oneliners'

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: OUTSTANDING DUO
Review: I have seen all the Wyman-Hudson moviesand I could never be able to rate one over the others as I enjoyed them allmore than once I promise you...a realMagnificent Pair.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Waaaaay to melodramatic
Review: I have to admit up front that I am not a fan of too much melodrama. I had to laugh out loud at a few scenes that were just too sappy. It was a nice movie, but definitely not one that I would ever watch again or add to my collection.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Picture Film Ever
Review: I love All That Heaven Allows.That movie taught me that gossip can be bad.I love Jane Wyman,Rock Hudson & Agnes Moorehead.They did a good job making this movie.My favorite charactars on this movie are Carrie Scott,Ron Kirby & Sara Warren.I think that All That Heaven Allows is a similar movie to The Magnicent Obsession.


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